But these daunting stats did not dampen the mood at the West Coast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics January 17 through 19 at the University of California, Berkeley. One-hundred-seventy female students gathered to tour physics labs, hear from physicists and share their research.

“Our goal really is to give these women an opportunity…to come and interact with other women in physics at many different levels…both in academia and in industry.”

“And one of the ideas is to present them with information about potential career paths…after a physics degree.”

I was once an undergraduate woman majoring in physics. I attended the conference to speak about careers in science writing. Between the attendees there, and those at eight other concurrent conferences for undergraduate women around the country, I'm hoping future statistics on women in physics will be like the Berkeley weather: bright and sunny.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Clara Moskowitz

Clara Moskowitz is Scientific American's senior editor covering space and physics. She has a bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics from Wesleyan University and a graduate degree in science journalism from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers.